March 17, 2014

Ana Tijoux Waxes Political With “Vengo”


Ana Tijoux
Vengo
Nacional Records

Felipe Cantillana/Wikimedia Commons

Ana Tijoux (read our past interview with her here) grew up amid political upheaval and turmoil in Chile; the rise of the Pinochet regime prompted her family to flee for France, and it wasn’t until the 1990s that Tijoux returned home—so it’s little surprise the MC—who gained international notoriety when the track from her sophomoric solo album, “1977,” was featured in an episode of Breaking Bad—raps about power, government, and community. In Vengo, the follow-up to Grammy-nominated La Bala, Tijoux sings in Spanish over pan flutes and horn-heavy beats, situating herself somewhere between local Andean music and global hip-hop. In the title track, which exemplifies the album’s dialog between these worlds, she raps confidently over a banging beat about her ancestry and the possibilities of revolution.

I come for answers
With a bundle of full and open veins
I come as an open book eager to learn the untold story of our ancestors…

I come to build a dream
The brightness of life that inhabits the new man
I come looking for an ideal of a world without
Class that can rise up

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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